justifiable; and, indeed, my dear,' she
added, quite in a humble way, 'I almost think you were right.'

Aunt Becky's looks and spirits had both improved from the moment of this
_eclaircissement_. A load was plainly removed from her mind. Let us hope
that her comfort and elation were perfectly unselfish. At all events,
her heart sang with a quiet joy, and her good humour was unbounded. So
she stood up, holding Lord Dunoran's hand in hers, and putting her white
arm round her niece's neck, she kissed her again and again, very
tenderly, and she said--

'How very happy, Gertrude, you must be!' and then she went quickly from
the room, drying her eyes.

Happy indeed she was, and not least in the termination of that secrecy
which was so full of self-reproach and sometimes of distrust. From the
evening of that dinner at the King's House, when in an agony of jealousy
she had almost disclosed to poor little Lily the secret of their
engagement, down to the latest moment of its concealment, her hours had
been darkened by care, and troubled with ceaseless agitations.

Everything was now going prosperously for Mervyn--or let us call him
henceforward Lord Dunoran. Against the united evidence of Sturk and
Irons, two independent witnesses, the crown were of opinion that no
defence was maintainable by the wretch, Archer. The two murders were
unambiguously sworn to by both witnesses. A correspondence, afterwards
read in the Irish House of Lords, was carried on between the Irish and
the English law officers of the crown--for the case, for many reasons,
was admitted to be momentous--as to which crime he should be first tried
for--the murder of Sturk, or that of Beauclerc. The latter was, in this
respect, the most momentous--that the cancelling of the forfeiture which
had ruined the Dunoran family depended upon it.

'But are you not forgetting, Sir,' said Mr. Attorney in consultation,
'that there's the finding of _felo de se_ against him by the coroner's
jury?'

'No, Sir,' answered the crown solicitor, well pleased to set Mr.
Attorney right. 'The jury being sworn, found only that he came by his
death, but whether by gout in his stomach, or by other disease, or by
poison, they had no certain knowledge; there was therefore no such
coroner's verdict, and no forfeiture therefore.'

'And I'm glad to hear it, with all my heart. I've seen the young
gentleman, and a very pretty young nobleman he is,' said Mr. Attorney.
Perhaps he would not ha